For the past two days, we had the opportunity to engage in a simulation involving the entire class. In essence, the class was divided into six "countries", with around six people each. Every country was allocated varying numbers of soldiers, artillery, ships, planes, and each country had a unique and set amount of "economic units" that it could use to build its army. Rank was determined by a power level and citizen satisfaction, both of which were displayed on the board along with each countries' resources and determined by the moderator.
Starting off with the first round: most countries seemed to be slightly confused with the system and were still working out alliances. However, by the third round, all countries declared war on country 4. It was later revealed that this was so due to 4's large stock of soldiers (600). At this point, most countries were not looking enough at the long-term benefits or harms of declaring war, because they did not thoroughly consider the consequences of defeating country 4. These countries planned to distribute 4's resources, including economic units, among themselves. However, these newly acquired resources would eventually get sucked up because it is the nature of resources to be more carelessly squandered when they exist in abundance. After putting these resources to waste and living through more dehumanization of those who were starved, the dominant countries (namely 1 and 2) would aim to kick out those who could not fend for themselves, and repeat the same course of action as the countries did with 4. The problem with this is that, after a while, countries 1 and 2 would be the only ones left; they could either lean towards world domination or kick the other out -- this entire process would inevitably leave all of the countries in a desolate state.
Although I do agree that the choices of most countries to declare war on Country 4 in order to essentially plunder all of their resources and to allocate them amongst themselves could lead to more conflict between all of the allied nations, I don't think that it would necessarily be destructive as you describe. You claim that all of the countries would "[dehumanize]" and "kick out those who could not fend for themselves" implying that this would be a set-course of immediate violence and conflict pitting the strong countries against the doomed weak countries, however I think this is over-simplifying the issues associated with the international relationships of our simulation. After all, by comparing the simulation itself to World War 1, it is clear that a "victory" or end to such conflict wouldn't be as direct and easy to achieve by the nations fighting, since as you claim yourself, to some extent, more conflict would continue to occur, which I think would prevent the powerful nations from being able to succeed. Also, even though World War 1 did financially ruin many countries throughout Europe, I don't think it necessarily "[left] all of the countries in a desolate state," meaning that it wouldn't be likely for such a thing to occur in our simulation, since we were essentially recreating the breakout of this war. So in short, even though you do bring up some good points about inevitable conflict between countries after they were to attack Country 4, I don't think this warring would be as simple and quick as you describe, since as we have seen through World War 1's unclear end and its series of stalemates, it would probably be much more drawn out and escalating.
ReplyDeleteReally nice job pointing out what happened round by round. I would like to add that group 4 had a secret alliance with group 3. With group 3 being allied with group 5, a conflict could breakout where group 3 had to choose sides. As with "all" the groups going to war against group 4, some of the treaties don't include war. Our group (1) was a treaty where we won't attack group 5 and they won't attack our group. I do agree that we should've spent more time playing the game and getting into war early on wasn't the smartest idea. As no credible reason existed for a war to start in the first place.
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